The Dukes County commission voted Wednesday to appoint two new airport commissioners, ousting longtime commissioner John S. Alley and Benjamin L. Hall Jr.
A Martha's Vineyard Airport employee is at the center of a tangled web of charges and countercharges, including a complaint filed with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.
Expanding transportation services among airlines, ferries, buses and trains have made the Vineyard more accessible than ever this summer.
Four airlines are now operating summer service between the Island and three major metropolitan areas. And two months ago train service began between Boston and the Cape that connects with a shuttle to the Steamship Authority.
The Martha’s Vineyard airport commission has the authority to establish salaries for its employees independently of other county employees salaries, an attorney for the Dukes County commission said. In a letter sent by email to county manager Martina Thornton on Dec. 11, Darren Klein, an attorney with Kopelman and Paige wrote: “In my opinion, as long as the airport commission has sufficient funds appropriated through the enterprise fund or otherwise, the airport commission has the authority . . . to fix salaries as it sees fit.”
As the Island starts to transition from summer crowds to autumn quiet, the Steamship Authority is reporting that traffic was up compared with last year.
“The summer was good; the traffic has been good,” Steamship Authority general manager Wayne Lamson told the Gazette this week.
June passenger traffic to the Vineyard was up by 4.7 per cent; July passenger traffic saw a decrease of 1.9 per cent; and August traffic was up by 7.2 per cent compared with 2011, according to Steamship Authority data. Passenger traffic is up 4.6 per cent for the year to date.
A third commercial airline has launched service to Martha's Vineyard Airport, joining Cape Air and the returning US Airways Express in serving Islanders while providing residents and visitors with additional airports to fly directly to and from.
Boston-Maine Airways, an affiliate of Pan American Airways based in Portsmouth, N.H., last Friday saw its inaugural flight from headquarters land at the Vineyard airport around noon. Airline officials proceeded to the terminal for a ceremony marking the start of the carrier's summer Island service.
The long-awaited master plan for the Martha's Vineyard Airport
envisions longer and wider run-ways, more hangars, a bigger main
terminal and room for retail shopping - all that but no land for a
new jail.
The pilot and passenger of a single engine plane apparently escaped serious injury last evening after crashing their four-seater Mooney aircraft into the scrub oak and low brush just a couple hundred yards shy of the approach to runway 15 at the Martha's Vineyard Airport.
Police and ambulance crews from at least four Island towns responded, shortly after 6 p.m., to the scene at the border of the Manuel F. Correllus State Forest and the airport, finding a dismembered plane and two men, both conscious.
Island residency proved the trump card for Sean Flynn, who was
selected as manager of Martha's Vineyard Airport on Wednesday
night in a 4-3 vote of the airport commission.
